


You need a means to an ending

by thought



Series: All your dead unfinished selves [3]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate universe - canon divergent, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 13:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14082288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: It takes getting chatted up in a shitty bar followed by two weeks of vaguely questionable tests before Jacobi actually gets a job offer.





	You need a means to an ending

2011

 

Jacobi gets in to work an hour and a half early the morning he's supposed to meet with Warren. No. Major Kepler. He's been working at Goddard for less than two weeks, completing his introductory training courses and familiarizing himself with the campus, and only encountered Kepler a few times, usually brief hallway meetings, once a coffee that had been rudely interrupted when someone had, at his best guess, done something really stupid and the four top floors of the R and D labs had to be evacuated.

He still isn't entirely sure what he's gotten himself into with Goddard, if he's being honest. So far he's only signed a suspiciously non-specific pre-employment contract, and the woman who had done his intake interview had assured him that "Goddard believes in placing people in positions of responsibility in accordance with their current level of experience." Which could mean... pretty much anything. He's been shadowing some developers in R and D, which seems the mostly likely placement given his skillset, but he's also had to complete an alarming number of psychological tests and a lie-detector test in which his entire history had been dragged out and interrogated for hours. There had also been a fitness test, which makes him think back to Kepler's casual mention of paramilitary work. It wouldn't surprise him. Goddard doesn't try very hard to look super innocent beyond the very surface public level.

Hallway meetings aside, because he's fairly sure those had been pre-arranged, Jacobi has been kept busy very far away from wherever Major Warren Kepler spends his time. Which is why the email from Kepler, typed out with abbreviations and shorthand that kind of reminds him of the way his aunt texts, had been a surprise. An early morning meeting in the Strategic Intelligence offices themselves, with no explanation provided.

He knows he's ridiculously early, but he's restless enough that he figures it's better to just show up and either wait, or catch Kepler earlier than intended. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like SI are early risers. Most of the offices he passes are dark and deserted. He's about to give up and go get another coffee when he hears a voice from the far end of the hallway, around the corner.

"You've got three guards coming from above, Klein. East entrance. Hades, I thought you said you disabled the alarms? Pillay, get out of there. If they're on to us I don't need you becoming a hostage. Klein, you've got 20 seconds to get that safe open or I'm calling it and you get the hell out."

He peers around the edge of the door. A dark-haired woman is hunched over a laptop, three monitors set up on the desk around her displaying what he assumes are security camera feeds of some sort of fancy gallery. She's wearing large headphones, and there's a mic clipped to the collar of her shirt. When she spins in her chair to check one of the monitors, he can see the bulky outline of a knee brace under her dress pants.

"Jesus!" she says. And then "No, no, it's fine. There's someone at my door, hang on."

Sliding the headphones down to hang around her neck she waves Jacobi in. "I don't recognize you."

"Uh," he says. "No. Sorry. I'm, uh, new. Daniel Jacobi. I've got a meeting with Major Kepler."

"Oooook," she says. "And?"

"I'm early," he says, feeling stupid. "But I can't even find his office."

She huffs out a breath. "Ok, hang on, he moves it practically every month. Take a seat and shut up for the next three minutes, and then I'll show you where to go."

"Thanks," he says, but she's already yanked the headset back on.

"Ok, kids, that's time. Klein, status? ... Good. Good. Great. Now both of you get the hell out of there. Hades, make sure the back exit is unlocked then bring the car around. Pillay, head for Point C, the boys will pick you up there. Hell, buy yourself a frappuccino while you wait, you deserve it for putting up with that asshole for an hour. Reports on my desk by Friday, kids, enjoy your day off. Hades, I've got that meeting with Kepler this afternoon, pull together whatever you think I'll need for that disaster, I trust your judgement. ... Aww, but why would I bother getting a secretary when you're so good at it?"

She sets the headset on the desk, types something quickly that makes all the monitors go dark.

"Ok!" she says, spinning the chair fully around to face him. "Jacobi. Let's go hunt you a wild Kepler."

"Uh," he says. She uses the desk to push herself to her feet, leaning her weight on it for a few seconds before straightening. "It's ok," he says. "If you just give me directions, you don't have to walk me there."

She waves him off. "I'm fine. The physiotherapist says it's good to keep it mobile. Sooner I'm healed, sooner I'm back out in the field."

He follows her out into the hall, waiting while she locks her office with a key card and coded electronic system way more advanced than anything his people have.

"So what is it you do?" he asks. "If I'm allowed to ask without earning a pair of cement shoes."

She snorts. "Domestic Intelligence gathering with a focus on mid-sized oil and gas producers."

Jacobi blinks, then quickly schools his face into polite interest. "That sounds... invigorating."

"It's not," she says, "don't worry. That's what you get when you're hired as a minor move in an ongoing workplace rivalry but are too high-ranked to stick in a filing room somewhere."

"I'm... sorry?"

"It's fine," she says, casually. "Kepler has to encounter a convenient accident one of these days."

"Uh," says Jacobi.

"And what do you do, Mr. Jacobi? New hire and already meeting with Kepler. There's gotta be a story there. Unless the story is sex, in which case I'm already bored."

Jacobi shrugs. "I honestly don't know. I'm in ballistics. Chemical engineering, bigger and better ways to blow things up. Kepler was the one who... well, chatted me up in a shitty bar, honestly, but I guess we're calling that a recruitment now."

"Is _that_ what they're calling it these days?"

"Listen, I know as much as you do. Maybe he's expecting me to make the first move now that he technically outranks me."

"Oh you should _definitely_ do that," she says. "And take a picture of his face."

"So that's a hard no, then," he says, and he refuses to acknowledge the tiny part of him that's disappointed.

"I wouldn't advise it. That's interesting, though. What were you doing before Goddard?"

Jacobi winces. "I was... in between jobs."

She glances back at him, then pauses, leaning slightly against the wall and facing him. "Goddard was a second chance for a lot of people," she says. "That's nothing to be ashamed of. Whatever happened in your past doesn't matter here."

"What's your sob story?" he shoots back, his neck prickling uncomfortably.

She shrugs. "It's not a good one. Disobeyed a few too many orders, called a few too many higher-ups on their bullshit. I'm pretty sure they were about to station me in Antarctica."

"You Air Force?" he guesses. She nods. "Does Goddard recruit from any other branch of the military? Honest question."

She shakes her head. "Not that I know of." She pushes off the wall, bonding moment apparently over. "Most of the employees doing work above Level 3 are headhunted to one degree or another. Back in the force I'd heard rumours about people disappearing into Goddard and never being heard from again, or showing up ten years later with a million dollar house and a shiny new sports car. It's what made me apply, I knew my work history put me at an advantage."

"I contracted," Jacobi says, surprised he's even telling her this much. So far he's kept his history private from his coworkers and nobody's pressed to find out. "Orbital ballistics. Really interesting stuff."

"And now you're here," she says, instead of 'So 2009 was you, then,' which is what most zoomies jump to as soon as he mentions his specialization.

"Now I'm here. I assume the part where I hand over my soul as compensation is just around the corner."

Lovelace stifles a laugh in her sleeve. "Let me know when you hit clearance 4 and I'll take you drinking. 1998 was a fucking wild time in Goddard history. In the meantime, you might want to keep the jokes about giving up your soul quiet when your around Special Projects."

With that deeply ominous piece of advice, she turns down a narrow hallway that Jacobi had assumed lead to a janitor's closet. At the end, recessed into the wall on the left so it's not visible from the main hall, a standard office door with security pad sits, benign and innocuous if not for the gleaming brass name plate, ostentatious enough to be cliche, given that every other nameplate he's seen has been flimsy plastic.

"The office of Warren J. Kepler," Lovelace says, unnecessarily. "AT least this month."

"Thanks," Jacobi says, suddenly unsure what to do with his hands. "I'll just... hang out here until it's time for our meeting."

"Oh he's already in," she says, and before he can stop her she wraps sharply on the door. There's a moment of silence before Kepler's voice beckons them to enter.

The office is impersonal, the only evidence that someone actually works there a stack of binders on top of the filing cabinet, and a sot blue sweater hung neatly on a peg beside the door.

"Brought you a present," Lovelace says. Kepler inclines his head, the glow of the computer monitor reflecting off a pair of tinted glasses perched on his nose.

"I see that."

"Don't break him," she says. "It's too late to get a refund."

Kepler presses his lips together, staring at Lovelace flatly.

"That works better without the glasses," she says, cheerfully. "I can't believe it's taking this long to heal."

Kepler's gaze flicks pointedly down to Lovelace's knee brace.

"Right," she says, shaking her head. "Good talk."

"Good morning, Daniel," Kepler says.

"I'm going to buy you a plant," Jacobi says, instead of literally any fucking thing else that might have given the impression that he's a normal functional adult with a basic grasp of social skills.

Lovelace laughs. The corner of Kepler's mouth twitches.

"He can't have any personal touches," Lovelace says. "Someone might make the mistake of thinking he's an actual person. Besides, don't you know, Jacobi, anything you care about can be used against you, even if it's a cactus that the greenhouse promised was practically unkillable."

"Goodbye, Captain," Kepler says pointedly. Lovelace backs away, smirking. To Jacobi, Kepler says "Take a seat."

Jacobi perches on the edge of the cheap cloth office chairs. The whole SI floor is more like a standard office building than anywhere in R and d, where even Jacobi's temporary desk chair is some fake leather ergonomic monstrosity and most of the chairs he seen in the labs are along the lines of two cardboard boxes duct-taped together. 

Lovelace leaves. She doesn't close the door, leaving it half open with an incomprehensible glance at Kepler. Jacobi has really been getting the vibe from Kepler that sex is off the table, but if Lovelace's attitude is anything to go by his estimations might be hasty.

"how have you been settling in, Daniel? It's been almost two weeks, hasn't it?"

Jacobi wonders what psychological advantage Kepler's getting by continuing to use his first name. He already feels kind of like a bug under a microscope, more so than he has in any of their previous interactions.

"Good," he says, after probably too long a pause. "It's good. Everything's... great."

"Hmm," says Kepler, and then nothing else for an uncomfortable ninety seconds. Jacobi shifts, links his hands together then drops them to the arms of the chair. The air conditioning shuts off, and suddenly the silence seems twice as intense. He tries not to hold his breath, but his breathing sounds impossibly loud.

Finally Kepler leans forward, planting his elbows on the desk and folding his hands under his chin. "You weren't hired for R and d."

Jacobi frowns. "I... wasn't? Because most of my training has been pretty clearly focused in that direction, so somebody better let HR know..."

"On paper, yes," Kepler waves that away dismissively. "But the intent was not for you to remain there past your probationary period."

"Well, consider I haven't even gotten an official job offer, that still seems a ways off."

"I'm escalating the timeline," Kepler says. "How do you feel about joining my team?"

"You have a team?"

Kepler glances at the open door. "Answer the question, Daniel."

"I feel like the closest I've come to spying is being terrible at video games in college, I almost failed Psych 101 because I was so bored, and I hire a guy to do my taxes every year because I hate dealing with financial bullshit. Sooooo if you do the kind of work I think you do, I'm probably not who you want. You know. If we're being candid."

Kepler's mouth twitches again. Jacobi wonders what he has against smiling. "But you're very good at breaking things. Isn't that what you told me?"

"Probably," Jacobi says. He doesn't actually remember much of what he'd said to Kepler. Mostly remembers the way Kepler had spoken with an easy confidence, like he knew he'd be obeyed, and the way his hands had curled around a glass, and also the business card that had been the closest thing to a job offer Jacobi had received since being drafted to teach intro Chem during the first (and only) year of his PHD.

"I'm not going to say you'd be wasted in R and d," Kepler says. "I have no doubt you will excel if you choose that career path. But I can assure you that SI will allow you to use your talents in ways you never thought possible. I expect better than the best of my people at all times and they consistently deliver. You won't be stuck in a lab. You'll be faced with diverse and time-sensitive challenges which I promise you will force more innovation than you'll ever find sitting behind a desk."

Jacobi holds up a hand. "You don't need to quote the brochure. I've told you what my qualifications or lack thereof are. If you still want me, I'm not about to say no."

Kepler nods, slightly, leans back. "I didn't think you would."


End file.
